Recently, Meta Stack Overflow and the other Stack Exchange meta sites have started to receive an influx of Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions from this account on Site XYZ, and we keep closing them as duplicates, but they keep coming, rearing their ugly head again and again...

There is a suggestion to add a link to that FAQ to the error message. But then I guess that would attract even more people who don't read to MSO... (Wondering how many people get blocked and do not find their way here. Maybe they simply create a new account and are not detected due to dynamic IP addresses? Maybe they actually get the message? Maybe they start answering and earn some points? We'll never know, I guess. But: I'm curious!)
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ArjanApr 21 '11 at 8:17

1

(Still wondering about the sock puppetry of that "{help}" question by te way!)
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ArjanApr 21 '11 at 8:29

8

Crush them? See them driven before us? Hear the lamentations of their women?
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Won'tApr 21 '11 at 13:28

2

Someone commented on one such post that he actually enjoys seeing them, because it shows that the "keep the worst of the worst out" policy works.
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Pops♦Apr 21 '11 at 15:00

3 Answers
3

First of all, I think that the error message should link directly to the meta post explaining the new limitation. This way, users will know right off the bat what the problem is and how they can start trying to fix it.

Secondly, I don't think users should get that far in the first place. The error message should be shown before they get the chance to compose their question. When they click on "Ask Question", it should go to a page explaining very clearly that we are no longer accepting questions from their account, why, and what they should do to proceed - basically, everything in the meta post, just laid out clearly before they even get as far as asking to plz send teh codes.

Then I guess that not linking to MSO, but linking to some other explanation, might keep the vampires away? Really, I've not seen those who have to ask about it (while the error message text is easily found here on MSO) improve. Though Mikhail is asking questions on SO again, and answering too. (Not high quality, and sometimes their own questions, but well...)
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ArjanApr 21 '11 at 8:26

This would indeed alleviate the vampires-on-meta problem. Good point.
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nhinkleApr 21 '11 at 8:31

Everything I've read about this suggests that users don't find out they can't ask any more questions until after it happens. It seems like it might be worth having an early warning indicator, so that if a particular account is getting close to triggering the lockout / suspension, they start getting a warning when they ask questions to encourage them to think about the quality of what they're asking. Something along the lines of:

It looks like some of your questions haven't been well received
in the past. Check the faq <insert link here> to see how to ask
great questions and become a better member of the community.
Repetative low quality questions risk losing the ability to ask
future questions.

Being a bit more proactive may help to prevent accounts from getting into such a bad state.

Of course it's possible this is already done and I've just not read about it :)

As far as I know, the EULA (with a checkbox, like "I'll keep this in mind") is all that is explicitly shown nowadays. And, of course, the references to the help in the rightmost column, while composing questions.
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ArjanApr 21 '11 at 8:47

Er, brilliant! I was worried about possible errors, as it is (some sort of) IP address ban. But then: those who are really blocked erroneously will figure out how to contact the team about that.
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ArjanApr 21 '11 at 12:11

One of the things I don't get about the restriction is, if I've been blocked from asking questions, what stops me from creating a new account and asking from there?
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forsvarirApr 21 '11 at 12:59

@Grace Note: Then why does it say 'from this account'? Doesn't that mean that I may be able to ask from an internet cafe, but not from home? That one of my co-workers could get the whole company banned because we're behind the same public address? Or am I just a bit confused? :)
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forsvarirApr 21 '11 at 13:09

@forsvarir I imagine it might affect both to some degree, to prevent trying to circumvent in that fashion. I don't know the full details, I only know that it does involve IPs to some degree and there are some levels of measure against people just creating new accounts for this.
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Grace Note♦Apr 21 '11 at 13:12

@forsvarir, the exact detection algorithms used aren't released publicly, in order to prevent circumvention, but we know that it involves a combination of user account, email, and IP address.
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nhinkleApr 21 '11 at 17:02

@nhinkle: fair enough, I'll work under the assumption that I'm never really going to need to know the algorithmn :)
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forsvarirApr 21 '11 at 17:48